Posts by Ernie & Ashleigh Szabo

Our non-profit provided lunch for the hardworking staff at Premier Health’s Miami Valley Hospital’s ER.  The Carlisle Subway put together a great spread and delivered it to the hospital. Below are a couple of pictures. Here is a copy of the letter we received from Miami Valley Hospital. Below are two sheets we created and…

We were talking about our time at Miami Valley Hospital right after Ashleigh’s accident.  We found some pictures of our time in the hospital and a few from a CareFlight reunion. Here is a first batch and we have more we will be adding.

Common sense has prevailed.  At least for the next few years. Hopefully the regulations can catch up with the technology before this law expires. From the Tobii website: On the evening of July 30, 2015, President Obama officially signed The Steve Gleason Act.  The new law helps protects patient access to medically necessary Speech Generating…

Ashleigh has been working hard with her Tobii Eyegaze system. We have been working with Sherry at The Perlman Center and she has been so pleased with Ashleigh’s progress and her determination. We have been experimenting with using the eyegaze system and then using a switch to make her selection.  On some days that works…

Here is Ashleigh working on her Tobii communication device.  There are some apps included that help the person work on their targeting and accuracy. On the video it shows that she has to target the person’s face on the screen with her eyes and if she does it then the person gets hit with a…

October turned out to be a very difficult month.  Ashleigh had seizures on three Thursdays in a row in October after 10+ years of no seizures. We think we identified the culprit as the drug Provigil.  We were just doing a trial of the drug and we think it caused the seizures. We tried to…

After testing a wide range of equipment and access methods the therapists decided the Tobii Eyegaze I15 would be the best choice for Ashleigh’s communication device. With the previous devices we have tried we were always fighting the fact that her vision was best on the lower left while her motor is best on the…

Medicare is implementing requirements that will put burdensome restrictions on people with ALS, brain injuries, and other debilitating impairments seeking to acquire and use Speech Generating Devices from Medicare. Speech Generating Devices (SGD) are computers that can take the user input and vocalize the output for those unable to vocalize themselves. We are asking that…

Ashleigh’s OT told us about a computer system a person at her school is using that uses eye gaze for selecting items on the screen. We wanted to learn more so we went for an evaluation at The Perlman Center, a part of Cincinnati Childrens Hospital.  They have a great augmentative communication department there. We…

Celeste’s twin girls are the latest additions to the family.  Ashleigh loves babies and as you can see she now has both of her arms full with her little cousins.  The girls, Ava and Isabel were born early and were so tiny it was scary.   They had a little longer stay in the hospital…